Palmer ORBIT 11 Cardioid Coaxial 3-way studio monitor (MSRP 799€/899$)

[JoeDiMEG]

Genelec reacted in this thread quite early.

Seems they take this alu-cardioid-coax Orbit 11 seriously.

KR

 

[Mort]

So, either you work for Genelec and know something the rest of us don't, or you are just insisting that you know they won't be worried, purely out of arrogance.

Anyway, given both companies sell studio monitors aimed at both the home studio and hifi markets, I would suggest that Genelec may well be concerned if Palmer starts eating into a significant part of their market share.
Given the apparent quality and value of the product being discussed here, this is a distinct possibility.

Obviously the big pro studio market is different. Big studios have big budgets. But this product is not really aimed at this market. My 2c.

Wow you don't know how to leave something do you?

Golf clap

 

[Oboreal]

I’m very ambivalent about this speaker. On the one hand, I find the specs impressive, and on paper I’d be thrilled to get a full‑range monitor at this kind of price. But at the same time, I also know that to integrate these speakers properly into my room and actually gain more than I lose I’d have to spend money and invest many hours of research and work to make them a real upgrade for both my mixes and my casual listening (I do both in my home studio). In the end, even if they live up to their promises, I’ll probably end up choosing monitors that don’t go as low but are paired with multiple subs. (These monitors lose much of their appeal if they’re not used full‑range imo.)

The reason I’m warning about how difficult it is to integrate a full‑range loudspeaker in a domestic space is that, from experience, I know amateurs already tend to completely overlook acoustic treatment even when they spend €10,000 on a pair of large monitors. So with compact €1,600 speakers that go below 30 Hz, I’m genuinely worried we’ll soon see a lot of them on the used market because people will buy them without realizing they’re beasts that require real integration work, and potentially acoustic investments far exceeding the price of the speakers themselves.

As for me, I haven’t made my decision yet since i should take care of my room first, and in any case, I generally avoid being an early adopter. It has saved me from some major disappointments more than once.

 

[RobL]

Genelec reacted in this thread quite early.

Seems they take this alu-cardioid-coax Orbit 11 seriously.

KR

Yes, it’s interesting that they are following the discussion.

 

[Mort]

Genelec reacted in this thread quite early.

Seems they take this alu-cardioid-coax Orbit 11 seriously.

KR

We appreciate @Ilkka Rissanen participation but they are not 'Genelec' the company. I didn't think that had to be said.

 

[sidechain]

I’m very ambivalent about this speaker. On the one hand, I find the specs impressive, and on paper I’d be thrilled to get a full‑range monitor at this kind of price. But at the same time, I also know that to integrate these speakers properly into my room and actually gain more than I lose I’d have to spend money and invest many hours of research and work to make them a real upgrade for both my mixes and my casual listening (I do both in my home studio). In the end, even if they live up to their promises, I’ll probably end up choosing monitors that don’t go as low but are paired with multiple subs. (These monitors lose much of their appeal if they’re not used full‑range imo.)

The reason I’m warning about how difficult it is to integrate a full‑range loudspeaker in a domestic space is that, from experience, I know amateurs already tend to completely overlook acoustic treatment even when they spend €10,000 on a pair of large monitors. So with compact €1,600 speakers that go below 30 Hz, I’m genuinely worried we’ll soon see a lot of them on the used market because people will buy them without realizing they’re beasts that require real integration work, and potentially acoustic investments far exceeding the price of the speakers themselves.

As for me, I haven’t made my decision yet since i should take care of my room first, and in any case, I generally avoid being an early adopter. It has saved me from some major disappointments more than once.

And thats where the coaxial and cardioid elements of the speaker come to play, less room dependant.

 

[Chr1]

Wow you don't know how to leave something do you?

Golf clap

Pot calling the kettle black methinks.

I was just pointing out that there might well be cause for concern at Genelec, Neumann etc. Primarily due to the value these monitors represent within the section of the market that they are aimed at.

Your continued sarcastic jibes just reinforce to me what comes across as daft childish arrogance.

 

[davidgale]

I’m very ambivalent about this speaker. On the one hand, I find the specs impressive, and on paper I’d be thrilled to get a full‑range monitor at this kind of price. But at the same time, I also know that to integrate these speakers properly into my room and actually gain more than I lose I’d have to spend money and invest many hours of research and work to make them a real upgrade for both my mixes and my casual listening (I do both in my home studio). In the end, even if they live up to their promises, I’ll probably end up choosing monitors that don’t go as low but are paired with multiple subs. (These monitors lose much of their appeal if they’re not used full‑range imo.)

The reason I’m warning about how difficult it is to integrate a full‑range loudspeaker in a domestic space is that, from experience, I know amateurs already tend to completely overlook acoustic treatment even when they spend €10,000 on a pair of large monitors. So with compact €1,600 speakers that go below 30 Hz, I’m genuinely worried we’ll soon see a lot of them on the used market because people will buy them without realizing they’re beasts that require real integration work, and potentially acoustic investments far exceeding the price of the speakers themselves.

As for me, I haven’t made my decision yet since i should take care of my room first, and in any case, I generally avoid being an early adopter. It has saved me from some major disappointments more than once.

Yes, that is exactly my experience. I am an owner of these speakers, and, as you correctly state, they are wild beasts. Without taming the low-end, one way or another, I'd go as far as saying the speakers are practically unuseable in an untreated room. Boomy and overwhelming bass.
What worked for me quite well is a simple HP filter dialed in Wiim Streamer. I still hear tons of bass. But I don't know what it represents in numbers i.e. whether now the effective low-end response is similar to more typical compact studio monitors that are "only" able to play down to 50Hz or a bit lower.

 

[Mort]

Pot calling the kettle black methinks.

I was just pointing out that there might well be cause for concern at Genelec, Neumann etc. Primarily due to the value of these monitors within section of the market that they are aimed at.

Your continued sarcastic jibes just reinforce to me what come accross as daft childish arrogance.

You are ignored. Congrats

 

[90sNintendoKid]

I’m very ambivalent about this speaker. On the one hand, I find the specs impressive, and on paper I’d be thrilled to get a full‑range monitor at this kind of price. But at the same time, I also know that to integrate these speakers properly into my room and actually gain more than I lose I’d have to spend money and invest many hours of research and work to make them a real upgrade for both my mixes and my casual listening (I do both in my home studio). In the end, even if they live up to their promises, I’ll probably end up choosing monitors that don’t go as low but are paired with multiple subs. (These monitors lose much of their appeal if they’re not used full‑range imo.)

The reason I’m warning about how difficult it is to integrate a full‑range loudspeaker in a domestic space is that, from experience, I know amateurs already tend to completely overlook acoustic treatment even when they spend €10,000 on a pair of large monitors. So with compact €1,600 speakers that go below 30 Hz, I’m genuinely worried we’ll soon see a lot of them on the used market because people will buy them without realizing they’re beasts that require real integration work, and potentially acoustic investments far exceeding the price of the speakers themselves.

As for me, I haven’t made my decision yet since i should take care of my room first, and in any case, I generally avoid being an early adopter. It has saved me from some major disappointments more than once.

I have done MLP measurements of my Orbits in my small room and they seem peaky in the bass (I can post measurements if people are interested). I agree that they may require EQ but I believe this is true of any speaker regardless of whether they are full range. I'm using subwoofers and Dirac ART with mine and I am going to do some sweeps in REW and different spl to check the distortion and where to set the support level.in Dirac.

I'd even use subwoofers with something like the Ascilab C8C or Dutch & Dutch 8C because of room nodes and placement, especially in my use case which is home cinema and upmixed stereo.

On the point on integrating full range speakers, it takes me less than 10 minutes to measure my system with Magic Beans True Target and then Dirac and A1 Evo are automated and I use the target curves from Magic Beans. I propose the barrier to entry for EQ is a lot lower than it used to be.

 

[3125b]

A0 of a grand piano is 27.5 hz (and mostly never played)

Interesting point; it's really not. There is some of the fundamental 27.5Hz in there, but harmonics are dominant (>100% of fundamental).

Some might want more.

Well then they'll have to buy bigger speakers.

Palmer can genuinely compete with about 99% of what Genelec sells the most.

True, the Orbit 11 is obvjectively better (value) than a Genelec 8040 (895€) or something along those lines.
But I'm not sure how much that matters. Buyers are not typically purely rational and/or fully informed.
I don't see the established players loosing sleep over an arguably strong newcomer. And despite being a privately owned company (no shareholders to appease), Palmer will have to raise prices eventually to make their necessary margins once they are a but more established in the market.

 

[Breeze98]

I have done MLP measurements of my Orbits in my small room and they seem peaky in the bass (I can post measurements if people are interested)

Please do. Even though it highlights your room, it's still interesting.

 

[Oboreal]

"And thats where the coaxial and cardioid elements of the speaker come to play, less room dependant."

I agree it’s something people repeat a lot, but it’s only partially true. In a typical 15‑square‑meter room, the Schroeder frequency is around 200 Hz. And below 200 Hz, almost no loudspeaker is actually cardioid. On top of that, it’s important to understand that treating the highs and mids is relatively easy : with 10 cm of dense rockwool, you still get an absorption coefficient of 0.5 or more between 200 and 20,000 Hz. At 40 Hz, using porous absorption, you would need about 45 cm of attic‑grade insulation to reach the same coefficient, which is simply impossible to implement in most rooms. You can of course do better with membrane bass traps, but the calculations and the practical implementation become far less trivial. So, yes, controlled directivity do help, but not necesseraly in the frequency range were it's the most difficult to handle. Multi subs can also help to make the room modes more even at the listening position, but won't adress the time domain issues either.

"Interesting point; it's really not. There is some of the fundamental 27.5Hz in there, but harmonics are dominant (>100% of fundamental)." We're on the same page.

 

[Salt]

Keep in mind: Palmer officially don't recommend this speaker for domestic use.

 

[levimax]

When presented with a reasonably priced high performance compact near field monitor with good LF extension, this LF extension is somehow considered a bug rather than a feature, even though the speakers come complete with the means to address room mode peaks. Tough crowd.

 

[Audionaut]

That's not to even bring up things like reputation,... and cache.

Which are decidedly subjective criteria

 

[3125b]

Keep in mind: Palmer officially don't recommend this speaker for domestic use.

According to their manual a lot of people who bought these will immediately die when attempting to use them

 

[kemmler3D]

I think most of us read graphs well enough to understand that these are pretty competitive in the desktop monitor market. Whether or not the emotional state of people at Genelec or Neumann could be called "worried", they are in competition with Palmer now. Given the price, specs, and apparently high parts cost, if I were working at G or N here's what I'd be thinking about / doing:

1. Get a set, and do a teardown and BOM/cost analysis to figure out if their pricing strategy is sustainable or if they're undercutting to steal market share. I'd do the same with one of their older products to compare estimated margins, and try to chat up their distributors to get a sense of their typical pricing strategy compared to the Orbit 11.

2. Keep an eye on Palmer's socials and ad buys to see what kind of marketing support they're putting behind this. Is this monitor a passion project for an internal engineering whiz, or is it a real plank of their strategy with proper long term organizational support?

3. Keep an eye on stock levels over the next 3-6 months. Are they investing in a lot of inventory or will a lack of commitment to or confidence in the line appear?

 

[staticV3]

the speakers come complete with the means to address room mode peaks.

They do not.

Cardioid response certainly helps, but room more peaks still remain and the Orbit has no built-in EQ to address those.

Customer feedback like this is the result:

• Bass is hard to tame (at least in my room)
• Without the miniDSP with Dirac Live, I would have returned them

 

[Salt]

According to their manual a lot of people who bought these will immediately die when attempting to use them

You mean I'm lucky they didn't kill me ... yet ?